Sonny's BBQ — Restaurant in Lynn Haven

Summary: The food tasted very good. Service was inattentive, and either the kitchen or waitstaff forgot to bring out part of our order.

Our experience: My wife and I were visiting Florida from the Pacific Northwest for a family event, and we decided to visit Sonny's BBQ while here. Our usual location at Panama City Beach was closed down, so we ventured to this spot. For our party of 6, we got 3 kids meals, 3 adult meals, and a corn nugget appetizer.

Pros- We were seated promptly The food was tasty (good nostalgic Sonny's tastiness) Prices were still pretty good compared to when we lived in Gainesville from 2004-2010. My kids' kids meal kept them happy and full. 2 of them got corn on the cob and loved it, and the Mac and cheese and baked beans earned no complaints. They were quiet and went to work on those kids meals once they came out, which was good. Restaurant was clean inside and out. They still had the all you can eat ribs on their menu, though I didn't partake this time around.

Cons- Our waitress was not very good overall. She took a long time to get to us, forgot straws, forgot my mustard and my mother in law's butter for her corn on the cob, forgot my chicken wings, didn't offer beverage refills, forgot my wife's salad plate for the salad buffet and took forever to get another salad plate when she asked for one. Didn't ask what kind of bread we wanted with our food and we automatically got texas toast (I wanted cornbread). My pulled pork and ribs were not warm. I'm not sure how long it had been sitting out, but it didn't seem to be on a warmer (maybe they pre-plate some popular menu items?) Everything took really long, except from the time I had my credit card out to the time I got it back. It is frustrating to have to wait to place your order after we have been done eating our appetizer, only to wait some more...

There were times when I felt really frustrated, but my wife reminded me that our waitress was pregnant and scurrying around to other tables, so pregnancy brain probably factored in.

Anyway, we like Sonny's BBQ. It's a Florida classic and will always be part of future trips to Florida. This Lynn Haven location had me frustrated a bit, but it worked out in the end. We'll probably order our food to go next time because of our...

When I first moved to Southport, I stopped going to Mission BBQ and began going to Sonny's BBQ. For almost 2 full years, we have went consistently once and sometimes ever twice a week. We always get our order to go and use the drive through.

I hate to say this but it may be time to head back to Mission BBQ for my family. Our average order ranges between $60 - $90. per visit and the last visits we have noticed the quality, and quantity of food we received has gone down and so has the service.

The last THREE orders we made were all missing various sides, the meat was dry, the food was cold and we ended up throwing most of the meals in the garbage. We have never called and complained but instead we just try to reason to ourselves that they may have staffing issues, new cooks, people in training, problems with getting quality food because of the problems going on in the world today etc. We make excuses for them so they don't have to make them to us.

After the last bad experience, we simply took a break from eating there and have given it more than a month to hopefully get better. Today, our family had a busy day working outside and when we were done, we all agreed to head to Sonny's. We were all looking forward to what we were hoping would be a fantastic meal. Nope. FOUR times now, we have wasted our money at the Lynn Haven location. Missing sides, wrong sides, cold food, dry chicken, terrible experience again. Now my family insists that I post our experiences and let others know. I hope that this Sonny's can overcome whatever internal issues they are experiencing by providing quality drive-through service. We want to rejoin the Sonny's family but not until we once again start getting good food and overall value for the money we spend.

UPDATE: 6-25-2022

O.k. we decided to just keep the faith and have continued going to Sonny's in hopes that whatever issues they were experiencing would eventually work themselves out. I am pleased to say that the last FOUR visits since my original post above from last month have been flawless. We received all the sides and the food has once again returned to the high standards we originally experienced. Thank you Sonny's for listening and making our...

Very dissatisfied with this place. We called in our order and were told it would be ready by 2:30. Went to pick it up and they had one person in front of us waiting. We waited behind him for roughly 30 minutes. Finally we moved up expecting to get our order and go. The cashier comes to the window and runs our credit card but doesn't come back. we wait another 15 minutes. We then pulled to the front of the store to go inside and see what the problem was and waited another 15 minutes. We would have left with nothing but they already ran the card. 1 hour later and we had our order. When we got home we saw they put two tiny tubs of blue cheese for 100 wings! Are you kidding me? I called and spoke to the person I was told was the district manager but he wasn't, he was the store manager. When I asked who the district manager was he said it was his Dad. Then he basically told me my business didn't matter to him and told me to have a nice day. It's been said the fish stinks from the head to the tail. Clearly my review is not indicative of an isolated issue rather poor training and execution by the owners. As you read the reviews written by others you'll see a trend. I am sorry I spent my money here but I know there are plenty of other wing places in the area. My mistake was being trapped by their offer of 100 wings for 60 dollars. I should have gone to Beef O'bradys since those wings are really good! Service is much better too! Fair warning to future patrons. On your next wing ding pick...